More than 50 million Americans are “food insecure,” according to a 2011 US Department of Agriculture study. In its latest designer collaboration, Target is partnering with FEED Projects to help change that.

Target is joining forces with Lauren Bush Lauren's FEED Projects, which has previously partnered with Gap, Bergdorf Goodman and Pottery Barn, but the Target partnership is the largest to date. The collection is due to launch June 30. The duo just wrapped up a five-city tour of Feeding America programs that took them to food banks and local pantries in San Francisco, Minnesota, New York City and more. Target and FEED are hoping the partnership will generate 10 million meals for Feeding America.

"Target (has) such a massive reach that we just don't have," Lauren toldUSA Today. "So it's wonderful when we can partner with Target to really just blow it out and have such a big impact in a short amount of time."Continue reading...

Instead, it's a list of stars who have recently agreed to serve as creative directors for brands — a trend that seems to blur the lines between star bling and business acumen.

Bud Light Platinum is the latest, announcing this week that it's inked deal with Justin Timberlake “to provide creative, musical and cultural curation for the brand.” The collaboration is to debut at Sunday’s 55th Grammy Awards via an ad, "Platinum Night," which features his latest single, "Suit & Tie." "Bud Light Platinum brings a refined, discerning aesthetic to beer that plays well with what I'm doing," Timberlake stated in a press release.Continue reading...

BlackBerry recently announced it's tapping the creative mind of Alicia Keys as "global creative director". Polaroid did the same with Lady Gaga.

As of today, combine another major brand with a celebrity "creative director:" American fashion designer Marc Jacobs and Diet Coke. The soft drink, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, made the announcement just as Fashion Week is ready to kick off in New York.

Jacobs will provide general creative input and what Women's Wear Daily called "whimsical, feminine" packaging for the brand, according to the Stylecaster blog, while Diet Coke's new commercial ("Photo Booth Break") reveals Jacobs as its latest fashion designer collaboration.Continue reading...

eBay has partnered with seven leading fashion designers on an exclusive new collaboration: the eBay Holiday Collective—an original, limited-edition gift collection of men's and women's apparel, jewelry, travel and electronics accessories and home décor items for the 2012-13 holiday season. Starting November 12, the capsule collections will be available globally, exclusively on eBay's fashion portal, at accessible, "Buy it Now" prices from $50 to $100 and will include free U.S. and international shipping. Above, watch designer Steven Alan discuss the partnership, and below, the designers behind the Fallon, Ruffian and Billy Reid labels. Also involved: Chris Benz, Tibi and Jonathan Adler, who taped his own homage to eBay as part of the brand's "eBay Thanks You" campaign:Continue reading...

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney aren't the only ones who want the votes of women this fall: Chevrolet is also pursuing women for the new Malibu, and so the brand has enlisted designer Isaac Mizrahi to get some fashion-forward attention for a vehicle that hasn't been known for being on the cutting edge of couture.

Mizrahi has designed a preppy collection (in patriotic colors of red, white and blue) of Chevy Malibu-inspired clothing, Malibu Style. It's exclusively being sold on the LivingSocial deals website, with its six pieces ranging from a bright blue totebag to an oversized watch, at prices ranging from $78 to $298.

The New York-based Mizrahi has colllaborated in the past with the likes of Target and QVC, but this collaboration aims at getting women to take a closer look at a nameplate that otherwise might not get their attention.Continue reading...

For any foreign brand that wants to become better known in America, partnering with one that already is renowned and made in the U.S.A. can be a great strategy. So that's what Fiat is doing by participating in the 20th anniversary of the Monopoly Game contest at McDonald's.

And, of course, Fiat hasn't chosen to partner with America's leading fast-food chain on just anything. The Monopoly promotion — in which customers peel game pieces from drinks and other selected menu items to collect property sets or win instant prizes, in-store and online — has become as iconic in its association with McDonald's as the Big Mac and Mayor McCheese.

That's just the point for Fiat. The brand and its minicars, new to the U.S. market over just the last year or so after a many-year hiatus, still are seeking more traction in American media and culture, competing with many other brands and against the fact that Americans still tend to favor bigger cars.Continue reading...

Louis Vuitton today released a closer look at its year-long collaboration with Japan's dot-happy avant-garde artist Yoyoi Kusama. In addition to the limited-edition collection featuring her iconic polka dots, the brand is sponsoring her current Whitney museum exhibition in New York and released a book and iPhone app in support. Its new video walk-through of the pop-up store at Printemps Paris, above, gives a closer look at one of seven Kusama-centric Vuitton in-store boutiques around the world.

In an unprecedented move at one of those co-branded retail installations, Selfridges is devoting all 24 windows at its London flagship to the Vuitton x Kusama collection through Oct. 1st, including producing two shortfilms titled "Spot the Difference" for the takeover and extending the Kusama craze to a Tate Modern tie-in. More on why Louis Vuitton designer Marc Jacobs and Vuitton's partners are besotted with Kusama's dots below.Continue reading...